Rusty Rose
by ElinaAV
Summary: In the 24th century, the technology has improved greatly, but there are no plants on Earth. When young Christine Daae first disappears, and then displays a living rose, the greed of the human race begins to show...  Rated T, just for sure.


Richard Firmin didn't care for much. Well, except for how full his wallet was. Therefore, it's needless to say that he didn't take the post as director of the Opera Populaire for the sake of the community. His only reason to accept the offer that had been given to him was that Populaire brought in enormous amounts of money. His new partner, Gilles André, was assumingly the same. They had both been working in the steel business earlier, so Richard had met Gilles before, but he couldn't say that he _knew _his new partner.

For these reasons, it was only natural that Richard Firmin's eyes became narrower and narrower as he read the letter. The sender demanded 20 000 000 gajetsas. A whole fortune. And what was even more offensive, the sender claimed Populaire to be _his opera_. Richard read the letter once more, to see if he'd missed something.

Nope. Nothing. No little thing that could lead him to the one who had written the letter. He was deeply offended. _He _was the one who owned the opera. At least partly. And as well as he was concerned, he didn't share the ownership with anyone else but Gilles André, a fact which immediately made him the prime suspect. Richard Firmin looked at the last sentence once more.

_Yours truthfully, O.G._

O.G.? Really? Was it some kind of prank? He raised his eyes to the woman standing in front of him. She was the one who had brought him the letter. Madame Giry, the ballet teacher. Richard had only been in the opera house for two days, yet he'd seen her passing by an awfully big amount of times. He grunted. Obviously, she didn't have that much work to do. He was somewhat surprised by the fact that Populaire actually had hired a human ballet teacher. A special-designed robot would be much handier. Easy to control, and hardly breakable. One of the great inventions of his ancestors. Richard recalled asking the previous director about the matter; he'd gotten the answer that the dance got much more emotional and individual thanks to human teaching.

"Something wrong, monsieur?" Madame Giry asked.

"The whole letter is wrong, Madame!" he replied with a loud voice. He shook the letter in front of her face.

"Excuse me, monsieur, but that's quite rude."

"You gave me the letter, so spit it out!"

"Excuse me?"

"You brought me the letter, so obviously, you know who the sender is!"

"Of course I know who it is. It's the opera ghost", she said, without the slightest concern in her voice. Richard Firmin raised an eyebrow.

"Madame Giry? Would you please tell me what you're talking about?"

"The phantom of the opera, of course!" A girl's voice answered his question. The owner of the voice popped up from behind Madame Giry's back. She was a blonde girl dressed in ballet clothes. Richard didn't recall her name. The ballet troupe seemed more like one single entity than a bunch of individuals.

"Meg…" the ballet teacher admonished, "Please, do not listen to other people's conversations."

Richard Firmin nodded a little. Absolutely right. Maybe that woman had some sense in her after all.

"Well, at least do not show if you've heard or not. That way you get both gossip and reputation for a good behavior at the same time", Madame Giry added, as if to take opposition against Richard's earlier thought. He was getting irritated. _Better end this conversation as soon as possible,_ he thought.

"Well, I will not meet his expectations. Whoever the sender is, he won't be getting a single gajetsa!"

"Oh, that's not a good idea, monsieur…", Madame Giry said, turning from the girl named Meg back to Richard. She looked sincerely worried.

"How can it be bad? I'll be saving 20 000 000 gajetsas. 20 000 000!"

"But he will definitely do something! He'll crave his money, somehow!"

"And what can a _ghost _do? Rattle with some chains?" He laughed. "Dear Madame Giry, this joke is not working. I'll go and do my other duties, if you don't mind. My _real _ones."

And so Richard Firmin went off. He threw the letter into the closest trash robot. It immediately started chewing, and a minute later no one could tell that there was a letter in there.

Madame Giry followed her new boss with her eyes as he went away from her. Meg took a step forward, so she stood next to her mother.

"What an old-fashioned man", she said,"and he's rude too. Who is it?"

"It's one of the new directors, dear. Mr. Firmin."

"Really? So he'll be around for a while?"

"I guess so."

"He sounds like he's living in the 21st century. He's 300 years too late."

"True."

Madame Giry didn't really know what she was saying. Her mind was too busy to think of such petty things as Mr. Firmin. She'd better prepare for what was going to happen. _You shouldn't ignore letters from ghosts,_ she thought.

* * *

**I do not own Phantom of the Opera, etc, etc. You know how it goes.**

**Please review! It's my first-ever fanfic, so I'd really like to know what you think!**


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